Prodrome
by Quentin2
Summary: Maybe there's no escaping fate. Reid struggles post Corazon. Sort of AU. Rated for shades of language.


_**Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds, I just terrorize their charachters from time to time. **_

_**Happy New Year! After watching Corazon, I decided to explore Reid's state of mind a little further. On further introspection, I decided to set this my AU world of "Requim" and "Special Providence." Not sure why, just made sense to me, I guess. **_

_**Read and enjoy! :)**_

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_**Prodrome**_

_Con tu Adiós  
__Te llevas  
__Mi corazón_

In his nightmares, this is how the scenario plays out. He always knew it would come to this.

Act I: The crippling headaches, the pain that somehow transcends even the worst migraine he's ever had. Light, even natural daylight, starts to drive him out of his mind with pain. And then he sees things that he shouldn't but can't see what he should.

Act II: The MRI tube, where the sloping, metal walls seem to be closing in on him as radiation works its way into his brain, taking a picture that will reveal nothing of his intelligence, his fears, his dreams, his Reid-ness.

Act III: The doctor appears and says the words that make his blood run cold: _Perhaps we should consider a psychological origin…_

In the sterile little exam room, he even pinches himself because he can't tell if he's dreaming or not. And this confusion scares him even further – disassociation from reality is one of the early, tell-tale hallmarks of breaking schizophrenia.

This moment has haunted him for years, since he was a child and would crawl into his mother's bed to read with her when she was in the grip of an episode. He always knew his mother was different, always suspected that other children had parents who didn't lock themselves away from sunlight and human contact. Even before he was aware of his mother's bizarre behavior, before he realized that Diana wasn't like the other mothers, who rose before their children to pack them healthy lunches of peanut butter sandwiches on Wonder Bread and shinny red apples, he could sense something sinister issuing from her room like a stale breath.

There was something invisible, terrifying, surrounding his mother, something malicious that lurked in that room, kept dark by heavy drapes and scented by the thick dust from the heavy tomes Diana liked to lose herself in. A specter, always lurking, biding it's time.

Waiting.

As he grew up, started to learn the ways of the world, the specter became more concrete, more terrifying. He discovered why his mother didn't go out of the house, why sometimes she would stare straight in front of her for hours, barely blinking, why she smoked through package after package of cigarettes, despite his daily reminder that she was killing herself. Slowly, her manias and nadirs made sense. Well, at least he had an explanation for them – symptoms of a disease that no one really understood.

At the public library, where he took refuge from the high school bullies who considered pint-sized geniuses perfect punching bags, he paged through the DSM III-R and discovered Axis I diseases. He read about schizophrenia and saw his mother through clinical eyes.

He also read about Gregor Mendel and genetics. He saw his future among the small black lines printed in those books.

* * *

When he first checked Diana into the hospital, he spoke to her doctor about his concerns. It was an uncharacteristic moment of vulnerability. He didn't like talking to anyone about this future, as if ignoring it would prevent it from coming true.

"You know, Spencer, there's no conclusive evidence that schizophrenia is passed genetically. Researchers are discovering new information about mental illnesses like your mother's every day."

It was 1999 and everyone was imbued with an anxious sense of hope for the new millennium. Maybe even a cure for schizophrenia was possible in the 21st Century.

"But the risk is greater if you have a first-degree relative with the disease?" he said.

The doctor looked uncomfortable, but nodded. "Yes, the risk is there."

* * *

He leaves the hospital in a fog, refusing to believe what he's just heard. He doesn't know his own mind. Did he want them to find something? Would he really be more relieved if the MRI revealed a tumor? As he drives, he imagines himself with cancer, wonders if dying young from a brain tumor was worse than slowly slipping into madness, like his mother.

He often thinks about death, his own, and that of others; he considers it in the clinical, detached manner that he views so much of his life. He's nearly died several times now, and he faces death every time the BAU opens a new case. It confuses him, because he doesn't really understand why human beings need to inflict it upon each other. Even this last case, filled with some of the most gruesome, gratuitous violence he has seen in a long time, leaves him nonplussed. He can predict how a killer will behave, but he can't always comprehend the mind that will view violence – death – destruction – as such an appealing option.

Is the answer, then, madness? he wonders. Is death and madness more closely linked than he'd like to acknowledge?

Sometimes he thinks everyone must be a little crazy, to keep on living when – in the end – death is the only future.

For schizophrenics, he knows, the first psychotic break often happens in a patient's 20s. He'll be thirty this year. If he's truly honest with himself, he knows that he's been thinking that he's out of the woods. By his age, his mother was already showing symptoms, her behavior growing more erratic, her mental state increasingly altered.

He thought he was safe.

* * *

Is this what it's like to go crazy? To live life every day without realizing how everything can change in a matter of moments? Does anyone ever realize how precious life is until it's gone?

* * *

In his apartment, he finds his way around by memory. The headaches have returned and he doesn't want to turn on a light.

He lies down on his bed, though it's still early evening and closes his eyes, mind drifting back to Miami.

The priest had told him he had ghosts in his head. And in truth, how could he not be haunted by everything he had seen? Maybe his headaches, his vision trouble, maybe all his symptoms are coming from stress. Environmental factors triggered schizophrenia too. If he had stayed at Cal-Tech, had become a mild-mannered, retiring professor of mathematics, his only concern his next research project, maybe he would be okay right now.

But his mother too had been a professor.

And their unsub.

He shivers, curling into a fetal position, rehashing the events of this latest case in his mind. Filled with some of the most gruesome, gratuitous violence he has seen in a long time, this case leaves him nonplussed. A man, a distinguished professor, killed four people, for a _book_.

So, yes, his mind is filled with ghosts. Most of them are of victims: past, present and yet to come.

But there's one ghost that's much older, much more personal:

The ghost of schizophrenia, that same wraith who dogged his mother has come now for him. Like a banshee who wails for those about to die, he feels the heavy inevitability of genetics pressing down upon him.

* * *

Maybe there's no escaping fate.

* * *

In the dark, he suddenly wants to call Lena. They speak from time to time, sharing with one another things that they usually don't tell anyone. They have a connection, the shared consciousness of the victim, that allows them to trust each other.

He reaches in his shoulder bag for his phone. He's wanted to tell her about all of this, ever since LA. He wants someone beside his co-workers – besides Morgan – to understand this part of him that he fears so implicitly. In fact, he's curious to see how she would react; it's a test of sorts: will you still like me if you know that I'm literally a ticking time-bomb of insanity.

He dials her number once, only to get her voice mail. He ends the call without leaving a message. How could he explain the reason for the call in a voicemail?

_Hi Lena, it's Spencer Reid. I'm just calling to tell you that I'm going crazy and I thought you'd like to share this burden with me. Cheers!_

But once he's considered it for a few minutes, he realizes his blunder. He remembers her telling him about her Cuban friends, how with them, she snuck into Cuba through Mexico – multiple times! – on a Russian passport.

After she had confessed this, she blushed, looking away. "I probably shouldn't have told you that," she muttered. "After all, you do work for the government. You could have me arrested."

He should have left some sort of message about Cuba, Santería, something with vague allusions to the case. Anything but nothing.

* * *

She picks up the next time he calls, ten, maybe twenty minutes later. She's walking around her house – he can hear the sound of her heels on the hardwood floors.

"Dr. Reid!" she says in greeting. She still calls him that, despite everything. He can't decide if he likes it or not. It makes him feel old, makes him feel like his mother, reminding him today of his current crisis. He wants her to say his name – Spencer – to hear what it sounds like on her lips. He wonders what her accent would do to it.

"Can I put you down for a moment?" she asks before he has a chance to say anything. "I've got to get some stuff in the freezer. Groceries"

He hears the distant sound of rustling paper bags, wonders what she buys for herself to eat.

"Was that you who called before?" she says when she returns on the line. "I was driving, sorry. They're cracking down on drivers with cell phones again."

"How's the weather?"

"It snowed again last night. Logan's closed and everyone seems to have forgotten how to drive. Winter as usual in New England." She chuckles. "But you didn't call about the weather, did you?"

"I just got back from Miami," he says.

"I'm sorry. On a case?"

He nods, though he knows she can't see it. "I thought about you. Well, about your checkered Cuban past. It featured Santería."

Her voice catches in her throat. "Santería. That's strong stuff to be fucking around with. Are you okay?"

"Well…" he pauses and the line is silent for an excruciating second or so.

"Dr. Reid? Is everything okay?"

"Lena, I…I haven't been feeling well. It's not – I mean I'm not cursed or anything." He laughs as if the idea is ludicrous to him.

She says nothing – he can practically hear her frown. "Have you," she begins, but she doesn't seem able to find the words to complete the thought. "What…what's wrong?"

"I don't know. I…" He's panicking. He shouldn't have done this. He can't bring himself to tell her about himself, about his mother, about his future. He clears his throat. "Listen, I've got to go."

"What? You just called. What's wrong?"

"Sorry, Lena. I didn't mean to bother you. I…I'm sorry."

He hangs up and when she calls him back, he turns his phone off.

* * *

When he wakes up, it's raining. At least he doesn't have to contend with direct sunlight today.

At the BAU, his fellow profilers are suspicious. They don't seem to have completely bought his story that he was faking his headache to confuse the unsub. But they don't push him. No one stops by his desk, feigning nonchalance while digging for clues. No one disturbs him when he refills his coffee cup, even as he lingers over his sugar. He's left alone with his thoughts, and the headache that hasn't completely metastasized, but threatens to overwhelm him at any moment.

* * *

She's sitting on the doorstep when he comes home, her hair frizzing in the humid air. She looks pitiful, like a cat who's been left out in the rain.

"What…what are you doing here?"

"There's something wrong. You turned off your phone. I wasn't going to sit up there and act like last night didn't happen."

"How'd you get here?"

She nods toward the street, where her car is parked. "I drove."

"From Boston?"

"From Boston."

He's impressed, startled. That's a nine hour drive, assuming she didn't hit any traffic around New York or DC.

She's studying him, her brow folded into a frown as she looks up at him. "Something has you running," she says. "You look like you're afraid of your own shadow."

He sits down on the steps next to her. Rain water from the cement soaks into his pants.

"You called me for a reason."

There's no denying that. "Things are changing."

"Spencer," she says, her voice soft. She rests a hand on his knee – a simple, comforting gesture. It's just enough. "Where would we be without change? Change is good."

He looks at her and smiles, suddenly glad – relieved even - that she came. In her presence, the specter seems to recede. The fear is still here, but more remote – kept at bay. "I have something to tell you," he says.

She nods, she knows this is coming. "Okay."

He also nods, steeling himself, and together they stand up and climb the rest of the stairs to his apartment.

_Fin_


End file.
